Odisha govt constitutes state backward classes commission

The Odisha government on Wednesday constituted the State Commission for Backward Classes and appointed former High Court judge Justice Raghunath Biswal as its chairman.

The other members of the OBC Commission are Prof Dr Navneeta Rath, Prof Dr Mitali Chinnara and Dr Prasanna Kumar Patra. Senior bureaucrat Veer Vikram Yadav has been nominated as the member secretary of the commission, an official statement released by the Chief Ministers Office said.

The state government has constituted the Commission in accordance with the provisions of the Odisha State Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993.

The first chairman of the OBC Commission Justice Raghunath Biswal was a former judge of the Orissa High Court. Earlier, he had also served as President State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission from November 2012 to March 2017.

While Dr Navneeta Rath is a social scientist who conducted studies on the backward classes, Mitali Chinnara is the professor in Economics and Dr Prasanna Kumar Patra is a renowned anthropologist and his research area included socio- cultural, biological anthropology and demography.

The state governments action came a day after National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) chairperson, Bhagwan Lal Sahni criticised Odisha for not appointing OBC commission and also for not reserving 27 per cent quota for the people of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) in the state.